


April - Part 1?

by solitaryjane



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-24
Updated: 2010-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitaryjane/pseuds/solitaryjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time Compression had left a string of changes - some more inconvenient than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	April - Part 1?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corollary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corollary/gifts).



> Request:  
> Rinoa, Edea, Seifer. Sorceress and knight meta -- one cannot exist without the other. Additionally: balance and growth, and the fact that Sorceresses are stagnant and unaging.
> 
> The fic does contain spoilers for post-game, but I suppose the summary kinda gave it away already.
> 
> Er, this fic has also gone a bit crack-tastic, and Edea didn't really make her way into the story - yet. It also probably needs a beginning, end, and a bunch of sequels, but that would require me to write a much longer piece and I didn't have enough time to develop all those. So, enjoy the little snippet, hopefully? I probably will write more and then there'd be a completely adventure, but that is for later.
> 
> (I have no clue why the title is called that save the setting takes place in Spring? And there's a cool song named that and I was listening to it at the time.)
> 
> *Fails author fails!*

**April**

 

“I told you, Seifer, I don’t need a bodyguard! You can go home now.”

Rinoa scoffed, kicking a pebble off the road as she stomped through the streets of Deling City. Her father had asked her to come see him, now that everything was all right in the world. His words, not hers, for Rinoa could name twenty things off the top of her head that was not “all right.” For example, Squall forced to spend a month out of every half-year at Esthar to spend time with his father. It was a good thing for the family to be united, and Rinoa was very glad that she didn’t have to come up with new things to drag her boyfriend out of the Balamb Garden Headmaster’s Office. She should’ve known that Squall would devote all his time to work after the whole ‘end of the world’ incident, but her optimism got the better of her. Squall spending time in Esthar would be fine if she could go with him. But she couldn’t, because that damn stubborn Seifer refused to be in the same country as the reunited father and son.

“Look, just that sissy boy by himself is enough. I ain’t going to put up with sissy boy and his old man and his fucking weirdo assistants all in the same room.”

“They’re not weird and how many times have I told you – stop calling Squall that in front of me! I have a right to defend him and, you know, I can hurt you, you darn knight.”

Usually by this point she and Seifer would devolve into children arguing about why it was not appropriate to use certain bad words. Sometimes Rinoa would let him off easy by closing her mouth and proceeding to ignore him for the next few days, up until they needed to perform the bonding ritual. Sometimes she’d had bad day and would unceremoniously bring out some Firaga, and watch the Sorcerer’s Knight run around trying to salvage his beloved trench coat. She didn’t know why he still wore the old tattered thing; even Fujin had commented about his need to REPLACE, as she elegantly put it.  But Seifer was Seifer, and stubbornness did not come alone. The coat, although grimy and sooty and had holes that Seifer had meticulously threatened Raijin to patch up (who knew Raijinw was so good at sewing?), still dragged wtih very intact seams, and the crosses remained bright and crimson. Rinoa had suspected he had cast some sort of Time magic on it, but, once realizing he couldn’t possibly do any magic without her knowledge, dismissed the idea until she then suspected he had outside help (like maybe Irvine, that darn Galbadian sympathizer who, surprisingly, became not quite close but pretty good buddies with Seifer.).

But right now all Rinoa want was some alone time to enjoy the crowded, bustling streets as she headed toward her father’s mansion. Did Seifer just _have_ to follow her this closely, especially with Balamb Garden right above them, hovering? It was so close that Seifer could comfortably sit in the cafeteria with her inside her father's house without any problems. The bond parameter was probably big enough that the Garden could even park on the edge of the city and nothing would happen, but of course with Quistis as acting Headmaster, that was out of the question too. “It would be too dangerous,” was what the blonde re-instated instructor had said. Everything was too dangerous! You would think being one of the most powerful sorceress in the world – albeit quite retired by now – would make a lot of dangerous things not so dangerous, but no, Rinoa couldn’t risk some guy who’s not even her boyfriend being a couple of city blocks away from her body. No, sir, he had to be right _there_ or else.

It wasn’t his fault, really. Or hers. They didn’t expect that after Time Compression the balance of magic would be altered. It was especially harsh on people with innate, un-junctioned powers, like sorceresses. Like Rinoa, and this certainly belonged to the list of "not all right" things. This fact that she now couldn't go anywhere without taking Seifer with her.

The bond between the Knight and his Sorceress had always been a powerful one, but now it was overwhelming that it required literally two physical beings to harness. GF’s had shared some of the burden for regular junctioned people in past, but they were not corporeal enough to handle the magic post the Compression-altered state. Therefore, for someone as powerful as a sorceresses, it was up to the knight to share the weight. Unfortunately that also meant the Knight couldn’t be physically away from his Sorceress for a certain distance before the concentration of magic would render one or both of their bodies to collapse, and hence, one less Rinoa.

Well, who could’ve expected that messing with space-time continuum would fuck a few things up?

“I’m not here to body-guard you,” Seifer said as they continued on. “You think I want to spend my Saturday evening stuck in a stuffy mansion with your old man? Hell I got things to do, so make it quick.”

“So why’re you following me then? We don’t need to be this close!”

“Who’s to say some random kidnapper won’t suddenly drag you off in a car? I still plan on enjoying the rest of my life, thank you.”

“You’re just as paranoid as Quistis! Plus, we don't know for sure that Knights die after a severing. All we’ve heard are sorceress deaths.”

“I’ll have you know that first time I thought my stomach was going to explode.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t. You didn’t stop breathing.”

“The only reason you did is because you fucking fainted while swimming. If it weren’t for chicken wuss you’d have drowned already and I’d probably have disintegrated right after.”

They didn’t discover the distance factor for a few weeks after the Final Battle, only that unjunctioning GF’s caused the user a lot of pain. Seifer was moving back into the Garden at the time, and dealing with the backlash of his errant knight business took more precedence. Rinoa had heard of a few odd cases of death around the globe, but she did not put two and two together until one day, as she was swimming near the Balamb shore, she suddenly felt like all air was being squeezed out of her lungs. Evidently Seifer had decided to take a train to Timber, but less than five minutes on his internal organs seemed to have rebelled against him. He was also taken over with the urge run toward the direction of Balamb Garden, where Rinoa was being carried, thanks to Zell, toward the infirmary.

He had to break the window of the train and roll himself onto the field, earning some nasty bruises and might've dislocated something, but nothing beat that incessant urge to RUN and the burning of his insides. Eventually he made his way and once they were within the distance of each other, all pain vanished. Rinoa came to the former (and current) knight standing next to her sick bed, wearing a sling and looked as pissed off as ever.

“What’s happening?” she had asked. “Is Ultimecia coming back again?”

“Nope,” Seifer had replied. “Just that I apparently walked too far.”

The following weeks were filled with investigation and research. Rinoa remembering spending the wee hours in the morning in the library, reading about magic occurrences during the time of the first Lunar Cry. They tested the boundaries to see exactly how far and how long the two could be separated before discomfort would start. Eventually they discovered that a bonding ritual could be used to reinforce the magic, therefore making their separation longer in both time and distance. Seifer had insisted they perform this at least once a fortnight (too much would make it backfire), which Rinoa gladly obliged.

She didn’t tell her father at first, not because she didn’t want to but she knew he’d overreact and another skirmish between the two Gardens was the last thing the world needed. Tonight would be the first time he'd see her after the discovery. She wasn’t nervous, but from the way that Seifer had insisted on following her, she began to suspect he might be.

“Are you ok?” she asked him as they walked up the mansion steps.

“What?”

“I’m asking are you okay. It’s alright if you don’t come with me, it’s not like he doesn’t know who you are.”

“The hell you talking about? You acting like  I’m asking your hand in marriage or something.”

“Seifer! If Squall were here he’d kill you for saying that!”

“No he wouldn’t. I’d kick his ass to the Moon. By the way, you going in or what? 'Cause there’s kind of a draft here and I’m getting cold.”

Rinoa sighed. “Oh alright, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just, don’t start talking crazy in front of that man. He’d probably lock me up again – and you in a separate room – just out of spite.”

“Hrph,” Seifer huffed, but did stay quiet. They walked up to the door and Rinoa knocked loudly. It was time to face her father.


End file.
